Here’s something from Clutch Magazine (I found the link on Womanist
Musings) about black women’s biopics we’d love to see.

My personal choice: Biddy Mason. She’s remembered now as a philanthropist, but to be one of the first black land owner, a business woman, etc., in nineteenth century CA suggests to me she was hardcore.

Why don’t women care that Common is ignorant? <– Not so sure how I feel about this: from what I remember, several black feminist bloggers did some really great posts on the misogyny in progressive rap. I can’t find them right now, because I’m still unpacking/moving in, but someone help me out here.

Courtesy of SF_Drama on Livejournal:
, controversial journalist Jim Sterling wrote an article on Destructoid about why
Nathan Drake of the Uncharted game franchise would make for a
fantastic homosexual character. Somebody on N4G liked it and re-posted
the article, which resulted in an eruption of comments along the lines
of “Homosexuality is just as bad as rape and murder”, “homosexuality
is a sin”, “just because I don’t want a character to be homosexual
doesn’t make me a homophobe” and “WHY WOULD YOU WANT TO BE GAY WHEN
FEMALES ARE SO MUCH MORE ATTRACTIVE THAN GUYS!?”

I have been hearing a bit of flap about whether the portrayal of
Irene Adler in the new updated version of “Sherlock” is sexist or not.
From what I’ve heard, I think it pretty clearly is, but Moffat appears
to be defending it.

Of course the story is all about his humiliation, nothing at all about how she must have felt running out as the enture stadium booed her. The comments are mixed, but there are a few that point out what a pressuring tactic he used on her.

I have no doubt that someone else will send you this link, it’s
equally heart-warming as it is heart-breaking. The little kid is
choosing his identity, the older brother is helping him, and the
father — obviously deeply entrenched in the type of false narrative
that Jennifer was talking about — cannot appreciate his son for what
he is.

Comments

LOL, NPD causes problems in relationships that are, according to the NPD, entirely the other party’s fault for not accommodating the NPD enough. If Girlfriend #1 doesn’t perform properly, he just dumps her and moves onto Girlfriend #2. If any of this was bothering NPDs, at least some of them would seek therapy, but none do.

Disabilities are things that cause other people to mistreat YOU for no logical reason. NPDs, frankly, are not mistreated enough because just when you get firmly decided “This guy is an asshole who needs a lesson”, they mimic Mr. Nice Guy for a bit and confuse you. This is how they escape the consequences of their bad behavior.

It’s a damn shame they can’t form relationships for purposes other than mirroring themselves or obtaining narcissistic supply, but you know who actually suffers from that? Non-NPDs who find themselves in relationships with NPDs.

That’s another point I’ll be making in the series – NPD is a disorder that inflicts suffering on the people AROUND the NPD, not the NPD himself. That makes it totally bass-ackwards to the vast majority of mental illnesses, and that’s why we non-NPDs have a vested interest in talking about it and understanding it.

I’ve read a lot of interesting things about a trend in SJ communities to center the feelings and experiences of oppressors as equally valid, which is kind of ironically mainstream. This is the narrative that says a rapist is mentally ill, and therefore disabled, and therefore an equal victim to the people he rapes, but I’ve also heard it used to excuse rapists as victims of “society” and merely perpetuators of rape culture.

These are not the kind of communities I wish to associate with, but some of their ideas may spread beyond those circles into other communities. As well, NPDs and other rapists have a vested interest in using these ideas to defend themselves socially or legally if there actions become known.

NPD is explicitly NEVER a basis for a mental health plea. The law calls it “Narcissistic Character Disorder” because in no way is an NPD unable to control his actions. They don’t even have impulse control problems. They routinely make sure not to rape people in front of witnesses; clearly, they could choose not to rape people when there aren’t any witnesses around. But they don’t. That’s character, not mental health.

As for non-NPD rapists, I’m not aware of anyone ever experiencing a command hallucination to go rape somebody, but that’s the sort of thing you need for a mental health plea.

And socially, this make sense too. The best stats indicate that only 1 in 8 abused kids go on to be abusive adults. While they probably ALL end up mentally ill to some degree (at least some depression or PTSD to work through), most of them don’t develop a taste for doing the same thing to others (nor would it make them feel better if they did). It insults all those people who manage to deal with their troubles without harming others, to suggest that abused people can’t help but bring hell on others.

I think what Shawn was getting at is that regardless if it actually makes sense or not someone with NPD could try to spin the story around to make it yet again all about them and how they have it so hard because of that diagnosis and can we please now continue worshipping them!!?11
While I haven’t seen a post like that by Schwyzer himself there are actually some of his fans accusing critics of ableism and how dare we criticising one of the bestest feminists of all time, yadda yadda. /facepalm

I know that’s what Shaun was getting at, and that’s what I responded to…? Sorry, I’m not clear on why you’re pointing this out.

I’ve lived with NPDs, and the behavior you describe is pretty much 24/7 (except most aren’t diagnosed – they just have it hard because no one understands them, everyone is jealous and out to get them, etc.). The solution? Get the fuck away from them.

I was offering talking points for Shaun to use when discussing NPD with people who might possibly be reasonable (unlike NPDs, who are never reasonable) and just not quite grasp that diagnosis does not equal disability.

No, I was disagreeing with the people Shaun has encountered who support the idea that NPDs are helpless in their decisions to commit crimes… carefully, without witnesses, while employing multiple forensic countermeasures. 😀

“that NPDs are helpless in their decisions to commit crimes… carefully, without witnesses, while employing multiple forensic countermeasures”

From what I read recently Schwyzer himself noted that he has (“had” in his book of course!) a kind of “Jekyll and Hyde” personality – he’d be a totally nice guy in public but very different in private. He fits your description to a t. *schudders*

Something’s only just hit me, regarding the manner of Hugo bringing up his attempt to murder an ex-girlfriend – that he was comisserating with a guy who was feeling guilty for shutting his dog out of the house. The anger I’ve seen at that is about the comparison of a woman with a dog. But presumably the guy shut his dog out accidentally, while Hugo’s description of the attempted murder was clearly one of a deliberate crime, and deliberate attempt to cover it up after. So hidden behind the comparison between woman and dog is an equivalence of crime and accident. Hugo invoked the same logic that’s used to equate rape victims to people walking in traffic. I can’t possibly be the only person who’s made that connection, but I’ve not seen it made elsewhere, and it seemed to be worth voicing.

Good catch. Equating accidents with deliberate crimes is a classic NPD strategy. It’s worth mentioning that no one has ever been cured of NPD.

There’s an online writer called Sam Vaknin who (plausibly IMO) claims to have NPD, to have found motivation to treat it, and to have had some success with that treatment. He doesn’t talk like Hugo. He hasn’t “worked his ass off to overcome” and all that glory talk. He says flat out he’s still a narcissist, even if the PD part has been improved via therapy, and he always will be, and writing about the disorder is his narcissistic supply – finally, an excuse to talk about himself ad nauseum! And yet, he expresses that for the harm he’s done in the past, which he’s now able to regret intellectually if not emotionally, he hopes his writing will help people understand this disorder, whether they’re trying to treat NPDs or just figure out how to get away from them.

Vaknin, I find plausible. Schwyzer still sounds rather narcissistic to me – which is a problem if he’s not aware that he still has a lot of work to do in that area, and is cultivating himself a little audience of fans who don’t get it.

As for Jeremy Brett as Sherlock Holmes, I think that portrayal still wins hands-down for me. I really like a lot of elements in Sherlock (particularly the lead actors), but even the first series had enough problems to make me rate the Brett series higher. It’s just the best, and Jeremy Brett REALLY had a handle on the character.